


A Lot Like Life

by lady_ragnell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Collars, Community: trope_bingo, Destiny, F/M, Light breathplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:19:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During treaty negotiations, the High Priestesses give Morgana an unorthodox gift, and he is more than he appears at first glance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lot Like Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "slavefic" square of my Trope Bingo card, and thus comes with **Warnings** for slavery, bondage (of a sort), some light breathplay, and the dub-con inherent in the situation even though consent is obtained (and enthusiastic)
> 
> Set in an ambiguous AU where Uther stopped the Purge after a few years and has been trying to make treaties ever since.
> 
> Title from Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant" because I could not resist.

“Haven’t let your new pet off his leash yet, Morgana?” Arthur asks in the corridor after they’re let out.

Morgana snaps before he can start sneering, lowering her voice. “The only reason he’s not already free and finding his own way is because I fear if I spurn the High Priestesses’ gift to me as well as their invitation to study with them the treaty will go to ruin. The second they’re gone, I’ll give him a purse or a job, as he wishes.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the boy give her an alarmed look.

Arthur snorts. “You get a collared boy and I get a sword. I wonder what sort of destiny the High Priestesses think they’re trying to avert.”

_He’ll know,_ Morgana thinks, feeling his trembling through the vibration of the fine chain she’s holding. “I’ve got to go settle him in,” she says instead, and pulls gently on the chain just to see the way he steps closer. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

*

Gwen is the one who thinks to ask the obvious question while she’s setting up the boy’s bedding. “What’s your name?”

He looks up, startled, from where he was kneeling unasked beside Morgana’s chair. “The Druids call me Emrys, but I prefer Merlin.”

“Merlin,” says Morgana thoughtfully, and his focus is on her before she’s even finished the word. “Are you here of your own free will?” The priestesses say it was his choice to kneel for her, but she doesn’t know what alternatives they offered him.

“Yes.”

She toys with the end of the chain, wonders what she’s meant to do with it when she isn’t leading him around. “Just to sit at my feet? What man would choose that?”

“I … I have to make something up to you.”

There’s something intense in his eyes, more aware and bright than she would expect from a man who chose to be a slave. “What would that be? We’ve never met before. I would have remembered.”

“It’s something I would have done, if Uther hadn’t ended his purge, if he weren’t trying for peace. If magic were still forbidden.” Merlin lowers his eyes again.

Morgana’s a seer; she knows the uselessness of atoning for actions never taken. She opens her mouth to tell him that if that’s his reason she won’t accept it, but Gwen interrupts with a hand on her shoulder. “His bed’s ready, my lady.”

*

The priestesses are staying a while longer, and they ask after Merlin with smug, too-knowing expressions (“how do you find your gift?” they ask, all looking behind her is if they expect her to tow him to the stables for a ride or to the lower town to shop). Morgana doesn’t need Uther reminding her that they must make this alliance at whatever cost to know she should make a visible point of being pleased with Merlin.

Despite Arthur’s teasing, she makes a companion of him, so that after a fortnight nobody even bats an eyelash to find Merlin at her heels as she goes about her day, and low stools tend to materialize next to her chair during audiences and banquets so he can perch next to her and, when no one’s looking, lean against her.

Sometimes Morgana forgets herself and pets his hair absently like she would the fur of a lapdog and generally only notices when Arthur raises incredulous eyebrows. Whenever she pulls away, Merlin looks up at her, startled and pleading, and Morgana has to look away to smile at Gwen as her wineglass is filled.

*

Gwen and Merlin get along well, perhaps because Gwen is the only one who completely ignores the collar around Merlin’s throat. When Morgana goes out without Merlin, she always comes back to hear laughter through the door, and when they’re all in the room together and Merlin isn’t hovering as close to Morgana as she’ll allow, he’s helping Gwen with her chores even though Morgana assures him he doesn’t need to, both of them giggling quietly over something she makes a point of not catching.

(And then she’ll move, or stand, and all of Merlin’s attention will be on her all at once, and a small, vicious part of her she tries to suppress thinks that it’s _right_ , that he’s _hers_ , that her restraint is foolish when he so obviously wants to give himself to her.)

Sometimes, she sends Merlin away for a few hours, usually to help Arthur, who’s between servants, and sits with Gwen just as she always used to. “What do you think of him?” she asks on one such afternoon, looking out the window instead of at Gwen, who’s hemming a shift.

“Do I think you should get rid of him when the priestesses leave, you mean,” Gwen corrects gently. Morgana shrugs. It’s close enough to the question she ought to be asking, at least. “I don’t think he would go unless you sent him,” she adds when Morgana makes no further response. “I don’t pretend to understand it, my lady, but he wants to … be yours.”

“Because he thinks he owes me for something he hasn’t done?”

Gwen’s silent for long enough that Morgana forces herself to turn around and meet her eyes. “You hired me because you saw yourself do something terrible to me in a dream that won’t come true. It’s not why I stay, and it’s not why you keep me on. I don’t think he would … I don’t think he looks at you the way he does because of duty.”

*

It changes like this:

Morgana wakes screaming, and Merlin is there.

Gwen is the one who usually tends to her after her visions, makes note of anything that they’ll need to remember or inform anyone of before the morning, and comforts her back to sleep if she needs it. Merlin’s been with her for at least three visions, but he stays on his own cot and only asks her if she’s well in the morning.

This time, it’s Gwen’s night at home with her father, and Morgana wakes with Merlin crouching next to her bed, not touching her but somehow waking her anyway. “Assassins! There was an assassin in the party that came with the new delegates from the Druids, he’s striking tonight, we’ve got to—”

“Who’s he after?” asks Merlin, and straightens up, suddenly not the affectionate collared boy who dogs her heels and smiles like he hasn’t a care in the world when she strokes his hair.

“Don’t worry about it, stay here, I’ve got to get to Arthur,” she says, struggling her way out of bed and taking her slippers when he offers them.

Merlin looks up through his lashes. “I can help, my lady.”

There’s no time, but she pauses to put her hand on his face anyway. “Don’t put yourself in danger, Merlin. Not both of you, not tonight.”

His eyes glow gold, as gold as hers when the priestesses teach her the magic that comes with her Seeing. For the first time, she feels the immensity of the power he’s been hiding from her, so great it shocks her that he would bow to anyone, let alone her. “I won’t be in any danger. Let me help you.”

*

After, as guards drag the assassin to the dungeon and Arthur assures their father that he was not hurt, that the man never even made it inside the door, Morgana takes Merlin aside. He’s lowered his eyes again, gone back to following her instead of leading the way, but she grabs his arm the second they’re alone and waits until he looks at her to speak. “You saved the Crown Prince’s life, tonight. I could free you, for that. The priestesses would surely not object.”

Merlin drops his eyes again. “And if I don’t want to be freed?”

“Why would you choose this? With your power, the thought of you being anyone’s slave is laughable, and I won’t have you if you’re simply here to repay a debt you don’t owe.”

“I’m here to be near to you, now. To … to see you laugh with Gwen, and to sit at your feet, and to make you smile, when I can. They gave me choices—to be a courtier, a delegate, everything you think my power would deserve—and then Nimueh told me I could have this, if I wished. That it would help. And I’d seen you once before, and …” Even in the dark, she can see his ears go red. “I wouldn’t be able to be near to you, if I weren’t yours,” he adds, ever so quiet.

Never has she wanted him to be wearing his damned chain more, when all she wants is to drag him behind her to her rooms and claim him as he so obviously wishes to be claimed. Instead, she grabs him by the wrist, digging her fingers into his pulse, and pulls him out into the corridor and towards her chambers.

He never says a word, but whenever she looks back there’s a tiny smile on his face.

*

Were Morgana a better woman, she would insist on removing Merlin’s collar before leading him to her bed. It’s the sign of his slavery, and he is her equal, or she would not be doing this. Something about the immensity of his magic, though, the knowledge that Camelot and Albion could be his with little more than a blink, makes Morgana finger the collar when they get behind her door again, giddy with the thought of all this power bent to her will, to serve her, simply because that’s what its bearer desires.

“I must free you, after this,” she says, almost an apology. Merlin, like a denial without words, sinks down to his knees and crawls after her to the bed. “I have little choice, when you’ve saved the prince’s life. Even the priestesses will allow it, and the king will be more comfortable when I no longer have a kept boy.” Uther’s fear of offending the priestesses is all that has allowed her this much grace.

“He will take me away from you,” says Merlin, sounding desolate, and looks up at her with pleading eyes when she climbs into her bed. “I told you, I stay for you, I want to stay close to you, and he will want to marry you to some noble, and even if I’m important to the Druids I don’t believe he would let me—”

“Hush.” She relishes his instant silence. “I am not marriageable. The whole of Camelot knows it. I’m no playing piece for knights to squabble over, with the magic I have. But an alliance with a man with your power? We would be equals, the priestesses would not object as they would to any other husband.” Morgana ruffles his hair and watches the way he goes almost boneless under her hands. “But you would still be _mine_.”

*

Morgana holds Merlin’s collar until its edges bite into her palms. He follows her lightest touch, enjoying the luxury of her bed in a way that makes her want to wrap him in silk and velvet just so she can watch the way he takes pleasure in it.

Merlin’s mouth is soft and expert on her thighs, on the jut of her hip, on her cunt when she presses his head down, stroking at his collar. He has her as he would a feast, eager and careful and devoting himself utterly to the task and to her. He’s _hers_ , and he will be even after she has removed his collar. Arthur may mock, Uther’s jaw may get tight with censure, but she will have Merlin and damn the consequences.

If his slavery prevented one terrible destiny, their partnership can only do more to brighten the future. She hasn’t Seen it, but she _believes_ it.

She comes against Merlin’s tongue with a cry, pulling on his collar until he chokes for air and spends himself, untouched on her sheets. “You’ll clean that up before Gwen comes,” she says, amused, and feels him nod against her thigh.

*

Morgana’s bride-gift to her husband, the most powerful sorcerer Albion has ever known, is a slim silver torc, intricately carved in runes she designed herself. Few have poor enough taste to remark on how it looks like a collar as she fastens it around his throat, and even fewer recognize him as the dark-haired boy who trotted at her heels for weeks. It is amazing how little people see when they don’t care to pay attention.

No one has to know that when they return to Morgana’s chambers, properly wed and alone for what should be their first night together, she hooks a thin silver chain, more like jewelry than a restraint, to a hidden loop on his torc. “There, see?” she says, stroking his hair in a way that’s still so natural she has to remind herself she can’t do it in public any longer. “You’re still mine. Nothing can change that.”

Morgana kisses Merlin as though he’s something precious and holds the chain tight in her hand.


End file.
